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Asshole Of The Day

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Asshole of the Day finds the public figures who are the biggest assholes each day
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Justice Scalia, Asshole of the Day for December 16, 2014

While Dick Cheney has been leading the way on defending the Bush administration's torture program-- both in redefining torture and explaining how he thinks 9/11 means that all treaties and prior norms no longer matter-- someone thought to ask Justice Scalia about whether torture is constitutional.

Now you'd think the issue would be cut-and-dry. After all, the Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". But Scalia has this to say:

“We have laws against torture,” Scalia replied. “The Constitution says nothing whatever about torture. It speaks of punishment; ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments are forbidden.”
“So torture is forbidden, in that case?” the host asked. “If it’s imposed as a punishment, yes,” Scalia responded. “If you condemn someone who has committed a crime to be tortured, that would be unconstitutional.”

You'll notice that Scalia is only talking about torture as punishment. So the interviewer asks about torture in interrogation, and Scalia is fine with that:

“We have never held that that’s contrary to the Constitution. And I don’t know what provision of the Constitution that would, that would contravene.
“Listen, I think it is very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person? I don’t think that’s so clear at all.
“And once again, it’s this sort of self-righteousness of European liberals who answer that question so readily and so easily. It’s not that easy a question.”

For Scalia then, torturing suspects is OK, but not if they are convicted of a crime. The fact that the suspect is considered, by the Constitution, to be innocent until proven guilty, doesn't matter. Somehow I doubt that the Founding Fathers would agree. So, for saying that convicts have more rights than suspects, Justice Scalia is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Justice Scalia's fourth time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for

Full story: Maddow Blog

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More on Dick Cheney's defense of torture

But this was before he went on the Sunday shows and took it even further. He was pressed on what torture's definition is, and what, if anything he rejects. This summary from the Atlantic covers it all:
Once 9/11 happened, Dick Cheney ceased to believe that the CIA should be subject to the U.S. Constitution, statutes passed by Congress, international treaties, or moral prohibitions against torture. Those standards would be cast aside. In their place, moral relativism would reign. Any action undertaken by the United States would be subject to this test: Is it morally equivalent to what al-Qaeda did on 9/11? Is it as bad as murdering roughly 3,000 innocent people? If not, then no one should criticize it, let alone investigate, charge and prosecute the CIA. Did a prisoner freeze to death? Were others anally raped? Well, what if they were?
If it cannot be compared with 9/11, if it is not morally equivalent, then it should not be verboten.
That is the moral standard Cheney is unabashedly invoking on national television. He doesn't want the United States to honor norms against torture. He doesn't want us to abide by the Ten Commandments, or to live up to the values in the Declaration of Independence, or to be restrained by the text of the Constitution. Instead, Cheney would have us take al-Qaeda as our moral and legal measuring stick. Did America torture dozens of innocents? So what. 9/11 was worse.

Read the whole thing. It's horrifying.

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Dick Cheney, Asshole of the Day for December 11, 2014

The world reacted with horror. The New York Times called the Senate report on CIA torture "a portrait of depravity.

John McCain said: "The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless."

Dick Cheney, of course, has a different take, telling Fox News' Bret Baier in a Wednesday interview: "The report's full of crap."  Crap, of course, is too mild a word for what the report contains. As Vox.com says: "listing every horrifying detail in the Senate Intelligence Committee's summary report on the CIA's torture program would be impossible." They give 16 of the worst details here.

The Daily Edge doesn't often agree with John McCain but he's right when he says the Bush-Cheney torture policies "stained our national honor, did much harm and little good.

As Slate points out, "there's no way Bush and Cheney didn't know what we were doing." And what we were doing included the same "war crimes" for which America hung Japanese soldiers after World War II.

For promoting and supporting these torture policies, and for still emphatically and unapologetically defending them--despite the fact they didn't work!!--Dick Cheney is for the 5th time, Asshole of the Day.

See his previous wins here.

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Liz Cheney, Asshole of the Day for August 5, 2014

It is also a fact that torture doesn't work. The Senate report says it doesn't work, and John McCain who was tortured during the Vietnam War also says it doesn't work.

"This president is an utter disgrace. He’s got a situation where, as your last two reports showed, you’ve got crises erupting around the world. And he is expending more time, more energy, more passion, more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes, CIA officers and others who kept is safe after 9/11," Cheney said on Fox News' Hannity.
"He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them, he went to Cairo and did it in 2009. Today he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable," Cheney continued.

She says two things here: The first is that Obama shouldn't be examining or discussing our history of torture because the world isn't safe. The second is her claim that Obama is lying and slandering by claiming the US tortured people. On the second she is demonstrably wrong-- the report proves we tortured.

But it's her first assertion that is more novel and worth examining. There's "crises erupting around the world", and this should keep Obama from ever investigating or talking about torture. Really. Too many things happening? Look, there will always be an excuse not to explore our own actions, but we must. It is fair to try to contest the conclusions from the investigation or decisions that result, but that doesn't mean it's legitimate to not ever have inquiries.

If this reasoning sounds familiar, it's because she's basically saying it's TOO SOON to talk about torture. I'm sure you're familiar with that argument-- it goes like this:

  1. Horrific shooting occurs
  2. It’s too soon to talk about gun control because of [insert most recent horrific shooting here].
  3. Nothing gets done
  4. Shootings keep happening since nothing gets done
  5. New shootings result in further delays in discussing or getting things done
  6. …and so on

It's become so routine that I made this chart:

And how does it apply here? Well, according to Liz Cheney, the too much is happening to talk about torture. So we never stop torturing or examine whether we should stop. And because we keep torturing, then we keep creating new enemies who hate America, in part because we torture. And those enemies attack, which means we can’t talk about torture again yet. Here's the chart:

This is why the TOO SOON argument is so offensive to me, and why every time I hear it I think they might as well be saying:

It’s too soon to talk about gun control after JFK got shot!

It’s too soon to talk about torture after 9/11!

TOO SOON.

TOO SOON.

TOO SOON.

Nope. Repeating it in ALL CAPS doesn’t help either. It’s time to talk about torture, Liz Cheney. A report has been done. We need to talk about it. American needs to own up to the fact that

  • torture doesn’t work
  • America tortured under Bush and Cheney

And Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t plan to hold anyone accountable criminally for what they did, not even Dick Cheney:

Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. I understand why it happened. I think it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And, you know, it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots, but having said all that, we did some things that were wrong. And that's what that report reflects.

We need to face up to what was done. The report is the first step. But Liz Cheney doesn’t want us to admit we tortured or that it doesn’t work. And for that, she is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Liz Cheney's second time as Asshole of the Day. Her previous time was for pushing to deny her own sister the same marriage rights that she herself enjoys.

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Chris Wallace, Asshole of the Day for April 7, 2014

The Senate report says that waterboarding didn't provide any useful intelligence that could not have been found any other way. John McCain, who's actually been tortured, says torture doesn't work. And yet some people keep insisting that it does work with no evidence.

I think the real issue is that they don't care whether it works. They think the people we've captured deserve to be tortured. It amounts to "maybe it will work, and if not, we've still tortured a bad person, so who cares?" They ignore the treaties we've signed in the past saying we won't torture, and that if we torture then it may increase the chance that our soldiers will be tortured if captured since we've broken the taboo.

The classified Senate report adds more support to other national security experts who have concluded that waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not provide effective information leading to bin Laden's capture.
During an April 4 appearance on The Mike Gallagher Show, Wallace previewed Fox News Sunday by saying he'd talk about "enhanced interrogation and whether or not the CIA covered up what was actually going on. I personally, I would have waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed myself." On Fox News Sunday, Wallace noted the investigation's reported conclusion "that the enhanced interrogation produced little intelligence of significance." In 2009, Wallace similarly remarked that when it comes to waterboarding, "I'm with" fictional 24 character "Jack Bauer on this."

It sure sounds to me like he doesn't care whether it works. Because whether it works or not does not depend on who you're torturing-- what they've done and their intentions. If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter who you torture, because it's ineffective and wrong. If it does work, then it would matter who you torture so that you'd get information; torturing someone with no information could not yield any and would just waste time.

So for ignoring evidence that torture doesn't work, even from frequent guest John McCain, and not even caring whether it works because he likes the idea of torturing Al Qaeda members (or suspected ones), Chris Wallace is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Chris Wallace's first time as Asshole of the Day.

Full story: Media Matters

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Is Michael Hayden Asshole of the Day?

Is former Gen. Michael Hayden asshole of the day for his sexist comment about Sen. Dianne Feinstein's reaction being "emotional"?

Sexist? I think so.

"If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted," she said in March.

And here's his take on it:

"That sentence -- that motivation for the report -- may show deep, emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don't think it leads you to an objective report," Hayden said, as recorded by the Washington Post.

I don't see it the way he does. Do you? Because it really seems like he jumped to dismissing her as an "emotional woman, you know how they are" on nothing. Nothing but his own sexism.

Photo source: CIA via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Hayden,_CIA_official_portrait.jpg

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